


Who Tells Your Story

by Geonn



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate History, American Revolution, Erotica, F/F, Lesbian Character, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-07-19 18:48:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7373317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Geonn/pseuds/Geonn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A barmaid who witnessed the birth of the American Revolution finds something far more distracting than Hamilton's theatrics.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Who Tells Your Story

**Author's Note:**

> The two main characters in this story are based on dancers in the company of Hamilton, Carleigh Bettiol and Betsy Struxness, but they can be pretty much anyone you want to imagine. The handful of recognizable words and phrases belong to Lin and were only borrowed to establish this takes place in the musical's continuity and not any real historical scenario.

There was nothing particularly unusual about that night, a warm summer evening in which customers kept ordering drinks mostly to have something cold in front of them. The front doors were open wide to catch whatever breeze might wander down the rarely-traveled road. Mercy Webster was working the bar as usual, dressed a bit more scandalously than she might have been otherwise, but the heat had made everyone more comfortable with ‘immoral’ behavior like women showing their bare arms or upper chests. Her blonde hair was also cut short and slicked back like a man’s. It drew a lot of sideways glances but the cool air on her exposed neck was too nice for her to care.

Even the patrons that night were familiar. The same group of obnoxious arrogant loudmouth braggarts at around one of the long tables and chirped about revolution to anybody who would listen. Occasionally Aaron Burr would be there to keep the talking to a minimum, to make sure the wrong ears didn’t overhear their crowing, but currently it was only the usual three rabble-rousers making a ruckus. She knew them all by name: the tailor’s apprentice, Mulligan; the Frenchman, Lafayette; the southerner John Laurens. A trio of revolutionary manumission abolitionists who were loud to begin with were only made louder by drink.

Mercy alternated between watching them and keeping an eye on the door. If anyone suspicious came in, anyone who looked British or loyal to the King, she would cross to the table and warn them to keep their traps shut. She was looking toward the door when Aaron Burr stepped inside. His dark features were briefly shadowed by the setting sun, but she would have recognized the set of his shoulders anywhere. 

It took her a moment to realize he was with the man who entered behind him, a short goateed man with his long hair tied back. He wore a tan jacket, slightly too big for him, and scanned the room like he was afraid something was going to attack him at any second. Burr put a hand on his shoulder and guided him toward the table where Lafayette was holding court. He adjusted the strap of his rucksack on his shoulder as Burr spoke to the men. She didn’t know what he said, but the volume of their discussion become significantly muted after he approached.

Mercy went back to her work. She walked around the room to gather empties and overheard a bit of the conversation from Burr’s table. “--essentially, they tax us relentlessly,” the newcomer was saying. She was surprised when she got closer and he turned to address her directly. “Don’t be shocked when your history books mention me!”

She smiled and nodded as she continued on. Lafayette, Mulligan, and Laurens were on their feet by that point. They’d been riled up by the newcomer’s enthusiasm and now the other patrons were paying attention to what was being said. Burr stepped in once more in an attempt to keep the volume down but Alexander’s excitement wouldn’t be quelled. The crowd gathered around him until, finally, Laurens led the group out the open door into the streets.

“I’m not throwing away my shot!” the new man shouted, with the others echoing him in harmony. A man in a tricorn hat was passing by and Laurens stepped in his way. “When are these colonies going to rise up?” he demanded to know. The other men were asking the same question across the street, their voices echoing up and down the street, carried on the wind until people started looking outside to see what the commotion was. Rather than being cowed by the attention, the newcomer seemed to be only spurred to greater heights.

“I know the action in the street is exciting, but Jesus, between all the bleeding and fighting I’ve been reading and writing...” 

Mercy remained in the doorway, her anxiety levels keyed up. She kept waiting for someone to come by, for the wrong ears to pick up the message. She scanned the crowd for signs of British clothing. Her eyes skipped over one woman in particular before something drew her attention back. She was petite but looked strong. Her black hair was styled in a poof at the top and cascaded long and straight down her back. She had her arms crossed as if unimpressed, but her body swayed as if to music only she could hear. Most of the people in the crowd were swaying, rocking on the balls of their feet as the group of four cried out for the colonies to “rise up.”

The crowd eventually came to their senses and dispersed before they could be rounded up. It was nearly closing time by that point, the sun down and night officially fallen, but Mercy decided to let them have one more round. She had to admit, their excitement had gotten to her as well. Her skin felt electric with the idea of revolution, freedom, rising up... it was frightening, but if someone was actually courageous enough to fight the battles, then the least she could do was keep their glasses full.

Lafayette, Laurens, Mulligan, and their new friend sat in the corner and raised their glass in a toast with the night’s last round. “Raise a glass to freedom,” Laurens sang, “something they can never take away, no matter what they tell you.” Some of the people they’d spoken to in the street had accompanied them inside, and Mercy strictly limited them all to one mug each before they had to leave. She was pouring the final round when she looked up into the eyes of the woman with the poof. The woman smiled brightly, her mug held out hopefully, and Mercy dutifully filled it with frothy amber ale. 

“My thanks,” the woman said. She was gone before Mercy could think of anything to say in response. When she turned, her hair moved like a ribbon, a sentient wave that hugged her shoulder and the contour of her spine as she walked back to her group of friends. She turned a chair around and straddled it as she sat down.

Mercy whispered, “Who is that?”

Someone who had been in the bar earlier misunderstood her question and said, “You didn’t hear? His name is Alexander Hamilton.”

“Oh.” Mercy forced herself to look away from the raven-haired beauty. “What has he done?”

“Nothing yet,” the man said, “but the way he’s been talking? Just you wait.”

The man walked away and Mercy returned her focus to the woman. She had her back to the bar, but she must have sensed the attention. She turned and saw Mercy watching her. She smiled and lifted her mug in a toast, nodding her head in thanks. Mercy smiled and fumbled with a washcloth, wiping down the bare wood of the bar top. 

When she looked up again, the dark-haired woman had turned back to her group. Mercy decided that was for the best; with the current powder keg brewing throughout the colonies, the last thing she needed was a secret that large.

#

Not long after Mercy heard the name “Alexander Hamilton” for the first time, British General Howe had troops on the water, bringing thirty-two thousand troops to shore in New York Harbor. Hamilton and Burr joined the fight without hesitation. Mercy was surprised when Lafayette, Mulligan, and Laurens showed they weren’t just blowing hot air and did the same. Soon everyone coming into the tavern wore uniforms of the revolution. Mercy proudly served them, extending credit wherever and for as long as she could. Those who could pay did. Those who didn’t quite have enough coin were trusted to pay her back when they did. She took both British and American currency, with a natural preference for the latter.

Brooklyn was a battleground when the dark-haired woman reappeared in Mercy’s tavern. Her uniform as the same as the men, just as tattered and muddied and smeared with brown-black streaks of blood. She made no attempt to disguise her gender and no one seemed to pay it any attention. The state of her clothes and weapon proved that she’d been fighting just as hard as they were, so there was no room for dismissal. They needed every able-bodied fighter willing to take up arms.

Mercy bided her time thinking up something to say so she wouldn’t be caught flat-footed when the woman approached the bar. When the time came, she felt calm and confident. Her voice betrayed no anxiety or ulterior motive as she filled the woman’s mug. 

“What’s your name?” Very forward, but she wasn’t going to risk losing the woman again.

“Verity Monk. You’re Mercy, right?”

Mercy nodded.

Verity raised an eyebrow. “So together we’re truth and compassion. Those two virtues seem to be in short supply these days.”

“We’ll have to stay close to each other, then.”

“I’d be amenable.” Verity lifted her full mug in thanks and carried it back to her table before Mercy could respond to the look in the other woman’s eyes. When Verity sat down, she chose a chair which faced the bar so she wouldn’t turn her back on her newfound friend. Mercy returned the brazen stare and wondered if it meant what she thought, what she hoped, but she didn’t dare explore it further in a barroom full of men.

Mercy tried to focus on her work. Wiping the bar, gathering empty mugs, (the knee-high black boots, scuffed leather and muddy soles), taking orders, making change, (the frayed edge of her vest and the tattered collar of the shirt underneath), finding peanuts and filling bowls as quickly as the patrons emptied them, (the buttons open at her throat to reveal the pale flesh underneath). She kept her hair in the same style, though it was understandably sloppier now. She sported a bruise on her right cheek and a mouse seemed to be healing under the eye on that same side.

The tavern slowly emptied. Verity remained where she was. She nursed her drink, told bawdy jokes and laughed at the jokes others told, but her focus continued to stray toward the bar. Every time their eyes met, Mercy found something else to hold her attention so she wouldn’t wonder what the soldier found so fascinating. When she found the hairs on the back of her neck standing up, she refused to confirm it was because she was under scrutiny.

Finally came time to close. She ushered everyone out, she took half-empty mugs away from hands too weak from drunk and exhaustion to fight her too hard. She was gentle but firm with the men as she sent them out into the night. If anyone noticed that she was ignoring Verity, no one took it up with her. They staggered home with their heads hung low under the weight of their already-looming hangovers. 

Mercy pushed the door closed, purposefully not looking toward the corner where her last patron still sat. A few swallows of Sam Adams remained in her mug, dregs from a pint Mercy had poured her over an hour earlier. Mercy waited until she was certain her hands wouldn’t shake and her voice would remain strong before she turned around. The lanterns had burned low enough to cast most of the room in shadows, but Verity had kept hers stoked. It burned brighter than the others and bathed her in a golden halo. It eradicated the bruises and highlighted her natural beauty.

“You’re not going to throw me out?” Verity asked.

“Did you expect me to?”

“I was hoping you wouldn’t.” She finally finished her drink. Her tongue touched her top lip as she gingerly put the mug back down. “I saw you looking at me.”

Mercy said, “You only saw it because you never took your eyes off me.”

Verity smiled. “True. Does that offend you?”

“No.”

“I’m certain men ogle you all day in a job like this.”

Mercy said, “They certainly do. And from them, I take offense because they see me as something to be taken, or had, or won.”

Verity held her gaze but tilted her head questioningly to one side. “That’s not how I look at you?”

“No. You look at me like... like I’m a dream you’re trying to remember.”

Verity grinned and finally looked away. She focused on her mug. “They say we’re going to be shipping out soon. Odds are most of us won’t be coming back.”

“General Washington seems confident.”

“General Washington speaks well, but he has doubts. We are outgunned and outmanned. The British have cannons downtown. Do you really think the men and women who were in here earlier stand a chance against a global superpower like Britain?”

Mercy moved slowly closer. “We have to believe, or else we’re simply surrendering. I’d rather die fighting than live under someone’s boot heel. I’m no soldier. I don’t have a military mind or the strength to march into war. But I can be here to support those who do. I can give them a safe haven to nurse their wounds. It’s not much but it’s what I can offer.”

“And if I die in battle but help to win the war, then at least I’ve laid the foundation to leave behind a better world than the one I inherited.”

Mercy was standing beside the table now. Verity had turned on the bench so they were facing each other, her head tilted back to maintain eye contact, but now she stood. She was shorter than she was in Mercy’s memory; all the nights she’d spent tossing and turning and imagining this stunning soldier, she had towered over the room. In reality, they were the same height. Her skin wasn’t flawless, and her hair wasn’t the perfect and smooth puff that Mercy always pictured. There were stray hairs sticking out in every direction, but that only made her want to reach up and brush the strands back into place. 

Verity held eye contact as she shrugged out of her uniform coat, letting the heavy wool collapse on the bench behind her. Mercy swallowed the lump in her throat and broke the too-intense eye contact. The lamplight caught Verity’s gold buttons and Mercy reached out to touch the top one. She traced the edge with her fingertip. Verity leaned in closer to whisper in Mercy’s ear.

“I don’t mind going to war.” Her breath was warm and made Mercy shiver; she closed her eyes. “I just don’t want to die with regrets. With unknowns.”

Mercy turned her head and kissed the skin above Verity’s collar. It was enough of an assent for Verity to put a hand on Mercy’s hip. Mercy matched her boldness by slipping an arm around her waist. Her fingers spread across the curve of Verity’s rear end and she bit back a gasp. She could feel Verity’s breath quickening in time with her own.

“I’ve never done anything like this,” Mercy whispered. “But I’ve imagined it enough that I believe I can bluff my way through the moves.”

Verity chuckled and turned to kiss Mercy’s cheek. “I’ve done it once before. I can help you with anything that might prove troublesome.”

Mercy turned her head and their lips met. It was a tentative kiss that ended almost as quickly as it began, upper and lower lips just barely grazing before they pulled away from each other. It was instinct, an ingrained urge not to give away their true desires. Never let anyone catch you looking, never let a touch linger, never surrender to longing. Mercy closed her eyes and touched her tongue to the corner of Verity’s mouth. Verity responded by pulling back and kissing her again. This time neither of them pulled back or twisted away.

“I have a bed upstairs,” Mercy said when her mouth wasn’t occupied. She touched Verity’s cheek and felt how warm it was, grateful that she wasn’t the only one who was feeling flushed. Verity nodded and kissed her again before taking a step away. Her hand drifted from Mercy’s waist to her wrist and they linked fingers. Verity led the way to the stairs before she realized she didn’t know where she was going. She smiled shyly and held back so Mercy could go up first.

“I love your hair,” Verity said as they ascended. 

“Yours is gorgeous. So long and smooth.” She looked back when she reached the landing. “I want you to brush it over my breasts when we’re naked.” Her voice was shaking; she’d never said anything half so brazen. Verity was a black shape on the stairs, silhouetted by the lantern below, but Mercy’s own face would be on full display thanks to the same light. 

Verity came up to the landing and put her hands on Mercy’s face. She brushed her thumbs over the smooth skin of her cheeks. “I would love to do that. But first you must get out of these clothes.”

“Undress me.”

Verity put a hand on Mercy’s hip and guided her toward the bed. Mercy walked backward through the darkness but she trusted Verity to not let her trip or catch her if she did. The room was not so large that directions were required. The bed was underneath a window that let in enough light to see. When they reached it, Verity paused and moved her hands to Mercy’s shoulders. Two fingers slipped under the straps of her dress and both women held their breath as she lifted them at the same time. She let them fall and moved her hand back, her fingers brushing away the indentations left in the soft skin from wearing the straps all day. She bent down and kissed the curve where shoulder met neck and Mercy closed her eyes, bit back a moan, and reached again for Verity’s buttons.

Mercy’s dress was pulled away from her skin. She drew her arms forward in an attempt to cover herself as she worked at Verity’s buttons. 

“Don’t hide yourself. This may be the only chance I have to see you. Show me. Everything.”

She sounded breathless, which made Mercy breathless. She took a step back and let her arms fall back. Verity’s vest and shirt were unbuttoned, exposing a strip of bare skin down the center of her torso. Mercy wanted to reach out and touch it but Verity touched her first. Her fingers traced a circle around first one nipple, then the other. She teased them to erection and then bent down to place the softest of kisses on each one.

“Verity...”

“Sit on the bed.”

Mercy did as she was told. Verity remained standing and took off the remnants of her uniform. She reached up and unfastened the clips in her hair. The poof collapsed and waves of hair fell across her shoulders and over the full swell of her breasts. Mercy reached up and took the hair in her hands. She watched as it feathered over her fingers and fell away like ink. 

“It’s like someone turned the sky into thread.” 

Verity knelt in front of her. Mercy placed her hands on the bed and watched as Verity kissed her chest, pausing to kiss her nipples again before moving lower. 

“What are you going to do?”

Verity sat up again. She moved forward, chest-to-chest, her lips against Mercy’s ear, and whispered her intentions. Mercy put her hands together in the center of Verity’s back as she listened. Her toes curled as she pictured it in her head and tried to imagine what it would feel like. Warmth built in her center and spread throughout her body. She tensed her thighs and moved her hands to the back of Verity’s head, whimpering with desire at what was being promised in rushed whispered words. She wanted it desperately but couldn’t imagine why Verity would want to do that.

“Y-you don’t have to do that just for me...”

“Mercy, you have no idea how much I want to. Please.”

“Okay. Yes, please, yes.”

Verity bent low again. She kissed a line across Mercy’s hips, under the line of her belly, her chin just barely teasing the thick blonde hair between Mercy’s legs. Mercy tensed in anticipation of Verity’s touch, trembling and forcing herself to breathe normally as her thighs were eased apart with a gentle touch of Verity’s hand. She gripped the sheets with both hands. Though she was prepared, she still exhaled sharply at the first touch of Verity’s tongue.

“Good?”

“Yes, please,” Mercy gasped. 

The seconds and minutes that followed dragged, her heart pounding in her ears to fill the silence of the room. Occasionally Verity would make a sound - a gasp, a moan - and Mercy would feel it in her sex. She put her hands in that perfect sheet of black hair and moved her hips forward, trying to force more from Verity. More tongue, more of her lips, more vibrations. She tried to keep her eyes open but they kept drifting shut.

“Your finger,” Mercy said. “The thing you said with... fingers...”

“Now?”

“Yes, yes.”

Verity touched her with a wet finger and Mercy thought she would hit the roof. The feeling was intensified when Verity moved her now-unoccupied mouth to the sensitive bud of Mercy’s clitoris and began to gently tease it with the tip of her tongue. Nothing in the world could have felt better, could have been more desirable, than that sensation. And then Verity added a second finger. Mercy cried out, clapped a hand over her mouth, and fell to one side. She closed her legs around Verity’s head and whimpered as she tried to make sense of everything happening in and to her body.

“Are you okay?” Verity asked, her voice the only evidence Mercy had that she’d stopped kissing her. Everything between her legs was still aflame with tingling seizures and she found herself laughing as she crossed her arms over her chest. She rolled onto her back and stared down at the other woman. She started to say something but instead laughed again. Verity smiled and sat up. She eased Mercy’s arms off her chest, exposing her breasts, and rolled her neck. Her hair fell over her shoulder and spilled into a dark puddle on Mercy’s stomach. 

Mercy’s laughter died off and she closed her eyes as Verity proceeded to stroke her with long sweeps of her hair. It felt like the wind but with more substance, as if each strand was so dark because it had been dipped in ink. With each twist of her neck, Verity was leaving marks on Mercy’s skin that only they would be able to see. Mercy lifted one arm above her head and forced her eyes open to watch as Verity climbed onto the bed and straddled her. 

“When did you take off your trousers?”

“When my tongue was inside of you,” Verity said. “I was touching myself.”

Mercy smiled. Their faces were aligned so that it was easy to simply lift her head and kiss Verity’s lips. Their tongues met and twisted together. Verity tasted different now, and Mercy’s heart skipped a beat when she realized why. She was tasting herself on the other woman’s mouth. The thought made her increase intensity, all but devouring Verity’s lips and tongue.

“Did you make yourself orgasm?”

“No.”

“Show me how to do it for you.”

Verity smiled. She took Mercy’s hand. She folded down the last two fingers, wet the first two with her mouth, and guided it down between their bodies. Mercy bit her bottom lip and looked down to watch as her hand was pressed against her lover’s mound. Her cheeks were on fire and her fingers were trembling as Verity lined up their fingers and showed her how to move them. Mercy looked back into Verity’s eyes as they drifted shut, her lips parting in a silent gasp.

“Yes, Mercy,” she said. “That feels so good. Don’t stop.”

“The way you say my name,” Mercy moaned. “I love it. I love hearing you say it.”

Verity said, “Say mine as you touch me.”

Mercy complied, drawing the three syllables out as much as possible. The vowels trembled with her emotion. Verity let go of her hand so she could hold onto Mercy’s thigh. Mercy didn’t mind; she felt she had the motions down. She was already familiar with the pressure of Verity’s thighs around her hand, the wetness on her fingers, the heat on her palm. When Verity finished, she arched her back, shoulders in the air and head down so that her hair fell across Mercy’s face like a ribbon unspooled. 

Verity caught her breath in a series of sharp gasps. She lowered herself to her elbows and rearranged herself so that her head was resting on Mercy’s breasts. Mercy used her fingertips to spread Verity’s hair across her torso one strand at a time until she was completely blanketed.

“Don’t move,” Mercy whispered.

“I wasn’t planning on it.”

Mercy smiled and closed her eyes. The room was quiet enough that she could hear Verity breathing, and the white noise of it soon lulled her to sleep as well. The war was on their doorstep, death loomed around every corner, and in the morning Verity would put her uniform back on and carry her rifle into the fires of Hell. For the promise of a future, for a better world and a free country that would make Mercy’s life better. In exchange for her sacrifice, Mercy was more than happy to provide Verity with her companionship for as long as she wanted it.

#

She and Verity made love once more before dawn. In the aftermath, sweat still drying on their skin, Mercy watched as Verity put her uniform back on. She washed her face and hands, kissed Mercy goodbye, and left the tavern. Mercy waited until she was gone before burying her face in the bedclothes and sobbing. She sobbed like their relationship had spanned years instead of only a few hours. She wept for the relationship she could never have even if they’d met in peacetime. She cried until there were no more tears, then she got up and dressed for another day behind the bar.

She served drinks. She made stew and set out bowls of peanuts for the few patrons who were still coming in. She fed the troops who stumbled in, she swept the floor as gunfire and cannons echoed in the near-distance. The ground sometimes shook with the eruptions, cannons being fired and cannonballs finding their targets. Regulars stopped coming and she knew it was because they were in the ground. One bright Wednesday morning was shattered when a cannonball crashed through the tavern’s roof and destroyed the bar.

The war raged on all up and down the eastern coast. General Washington did his best to keep the enemy at bay, fighting in the name of every person who yearned to be free. Britain controlled New York City by that time and Mercy was forced to hide her loyalties if she wanted to keep her bar. Her regulars were all replaced by British officers, oafish men who pinched and slapped her rear end or ogled her breasts. They weren’t so bad when they were sober, but her job was to get them drunk. 

Years passed. The war became the normal way of life. Then one October morning, Mercy woke late to find her bedroom windows frosted over. The road leading to the tavern was covered with a fine layer of snow. She’d been keeping the door closed rather than serve increasingly bold British troops, but even if she’d been open she doubted there would have been any customers. She remained in her room and wrapped herself in the blankets to watch the snow fall. 

It was close to noon when she heard singing from the harbor. It was too far away to hear the words, but the voices and drums joined in a clatter that rocked between tenements and row houses until the entire city seemed to be vibrating with the sound of it. Mercy craned her neck in an attempt to see more but she refused to venture out of the building to find out what was happening. If it was important, she would learn soon enough.

Days passed. More singing, but no one came to the tavern to tell her why. She didn’t care. She was sitting in her room watching the snow one morning when she saw a solitary figure walking down the road. Whoever it was moved carefully as if wounded or exhausted or both. She, for it was obvious it was a woman, wore a tricorn hat and a heavy wool coat. She was dragging her right foot a bit. When she reached the tavern she turned and approached the door.

Mercy frowned and waited for the actual knock before she stood and went downstairs. The visitor continued to knock, insistent, and Mercy undid the latches warily. Finally, she swung the door open and a wall of snow collapsed down onto her bare feet. Standing before her was Verity Monk, gaunt and hungry-looking, her fine hair hanging on either side of her face like weeds, but her eyes unmistakable and, most importantly, so alive.

“Verity...”

She smiled. “You remember me.”

Mercy stepped into the snow and tried to make amends for their years of separation with one kiss. Verity clung to her, hands tightening in fists in the back of Mercy’s dress. She pulled back so she could examine Verity.

“Your leg...”

“Just a wound that will heal, given time. I didn’t want to wait.”

“Where were you?”

“Many places, since last we... since...” She smiled at the memory that she didn’t have to name. But most recently, Yorktown. We fought for a full week. We...”

Mercy crossed Verity’s lips with two fingers and shushed her. “We won?”

Verity smiled and nodded. “We won.” She gathered Mercy in her arms and picked her up so her feet wouldn’t be in the snow. “We won, we won.”

Mercy buried her face in the filthy coat Verity was wearing, hot tears streaking down her face. She was overjoyed at the reunion and the news that they’d actually won the war. She was trembling at the thought of what the future held. Eventually she whispered for Verity to put her down. They reached for each other at the same time, their hands joining as if they had been made for that purpose, and Mercy pulled Verity into the tavern. There were men who could take care of building their new country; all Mercy had to take care of was one soldier who made victory possible. Verity Monk was only one of thousands who had put their lives on the line to ensure their nation and its people survived. There was every chance she would be forgotten by history unless someone took the time to chronicle her contribution.

Mercy was more than willing to do her part to ensure Verity's story was known, remembered, and told.


End file.
